Literature_Analysis

Literary criticism is an attempt to evaluate and understand the writings of the author. Literary criticism is a description, analysis, evaluation, or interpretation of a particular literary work or an author's writings as a whole. Plays, Poetry, and short stories were the different types of literature covered in this class. The three pieces I’ve pick to try an analyze are “A Rose for Emily,” by William Faulkner, “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” by Anne Bradstreet and the story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky,” by Stephen Crane. I have chosen these three because they have related to my life in someway or another. I will discuss how the three compare using characters and how the authors are descriptive in their writings and draw their readers into the stories or poem. In the story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” and “A Rose for Emily” the authors us such descriptive detail in the stories you can actually see, smell, and feel each characters being. One part in the story “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” that makes you see the character is on the train when Stephen Crane describes Jack and his bride. Jack” his face reddened from many days in the wind and sun.” I can picture a guy checks and nose sun burnt. Along with the description given to Jacks bride as “not very pretty, nor was she Lit 2 very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere, with steel buttons, and how she was embarrassed by her puff sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high”. I my mind I see an older woman in a dress for example from goodwill in the 1980s. She’s a new bride and doesn’t feel like a bride. The description of Miss Emily’s house Faulkner used as being “a big squarish frame house that had once been white,” and how Miss Emily looked as she walked in to the meeting with the Board of Aldermen, “a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head.” The end of the story Faulkner gives such detail about the body of Miss Emily’s suitor “Homer Barron, in the room decked and furnished for a bridal night, and how the body of Homer was is described as fleshless and once laid as if it were in an embrace, how he had rotted beneath his nightshirt”. This makes the imagination run wild and you can almost smell the dank smell of the room, and when they said on the pillow beside was and indention on the pillow as if someone had laid their head there and then they find the strands of grey or silver hair. This just made my skin crawl I could just picture it all. In the poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” as I read I could picture my own parents and how much in love they were and this poem just brought back such a flood of emotions. In the lines “Then while we live, in love let’s so pers`ever that when we live no more, we may live ever”. I thought this related to the story “A Rose for Emily” that Lit 3 maybe this is why she killed Homer Barron. Miss Emily was so in love with him, she could keep him with her until she died not thinking that one day they would meet again. Miss Emily could have also been so afraid to be alone so she poisoned Homer to keep him so she would not be alone. I prefer to believe she was so in love as the Poem states she did not want to let him go. I think the part in the poem that makes me think of Miss Emily is “That when we live no more, we may live ever.” This could be how Miss Emily felt when poisoning Homer that even though he was gone he was still with her perhaps this is why she kept him upstairs in the bedroom so she had him with her at all times even though he was not a living breathing being he was still with her. Many questions arise with the story as to why Miss Emily would do this it keeps the readers guessing. Perhaps Miss Emily thought she would not die alone even though she could not talk to Homer he would be there with her when she died. “My love is such that rivers cannot quench” could explain why Miss Emily poisoned her beloved Homer. There are so many questions as to why she would do this. I wish Faulkner had given the reader a little more detail into why Miss Emily would do this but I guess this is what keeps the readers mind working trying to figure out the motive. The poem also relates to the “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” I think the part of the poem “If ever wife was happy in a man” could describe the happiness of Jack and his bride as they boarded the train. The line in the story “They were evidently very happy” the way the author’s describe their feelings in the story and poem make you all warm Lit 4 inside. Also when Jack went to San Antonio and married a girl he thought he loved. Jack loved his bride and married whether the towns people would like it or not and Jack loved his town, but loved his bride more so he married her without talking to the towns people, compares to the line in the poem “loving more than whole mines of gold” is my view. Jack showing his love for his bride in another section of the story would be when he tells his bride how they will go to the diner car and have the finest meal in the world. His bride thought that it was too much money for a fine meal a whole dollar but Jack assured her that this trip was well worth his dollar for each of them a fine meal. Two of short stories “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” and “ A Rose for Emily” shows the reader how people judge and are prejudice towards people. There are several prejudices in the stories. For instance, in “Bride comes to Yellow Sky” the porter bullies them in a way they did not understand. The porter on the train treated them with “all the unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them: in a way they had small knowledge of him doing so.” In the story “A Rose for Emily” the towns people thought the Griersons were snobs in their own right, the towns people thought the” Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were.” Another part of the story where Miss Emily’s neighbor is complaining about the smell coming from Miss Emily’s house, She relates to Miss Emily as a high and mighty Grierson, and wants the judge to do something about the smell Lit 5 coming from the house. When Miss Emily’s father dies, the towns’ people are glad in a way, saying Miss Emily would somehow now be humanized and learn what it was like to live on little money. It seems Faulkner and Crane must have been treated with some type of prejudice in their life. Perhaps Faulkner and Crane were prejudice towards others also. I feel both of these writers reflect many of their life experiences in their writings. Prejudice has been around for a long time and is still present today in some areas. It is sad but we can learn from prejudice and how we can over come it to better our lives. This is what makes so many of the writers stories hit home being able to draw the readers in using some of their own life experiences make the readings more interesting and can draw the reader into the stories. I feel it enables the reader to become a part of the story. The readers can actually place themselves as a character in the story because we have all had some type of prejudice directed towards us at some point in our lives. If you have ever lived in small town America, the description of how the town’s people act in both stories “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” and “A Rose for Emily” are right on the money. In a small town population people can judge marriage, there is something wrong with a person if they are not married by a certain age and then if some of the elders in the town do not approve of the marriage comments are made. Both stories in so many ways compare to life in small towns, where people have nothing better to do than to spy on someone to see what they can gossip about. Lit 6 It seemed as Anne Bradstreet focus her poem was based on her life’s experiences as well. She based her poem on her love for her husband and family which is very well reflected in her poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” this poem reflected how much in love with her husband she was. I found myself relating this poem to my parents’ marriage and hoping that one day my marriage can have such a deep great love. In conclusion, I feel the two short stories and one poem I chose can be compared in many different aspects. The three of them tie in very well with each other through love and prejudice even though the authors come from very different backgrounds of life they all wrote with their life experiences in mind. The authors had a talent for drawing readers into their stories and poems and kept the reader’s attention throughout the readings. Reference Literature 6th edition Di Yanni, Robert